The Fourth District Court of Appeal of Florida has ruled that a defamation lawsuit filed by President Donald J. Trump against members of the Pulitzer Prize Board can proceed, affirming a lower court’s decision that Florida has personal jurisdiction over the defendants. The lawsuit stems from a 2022 statement issued by the Pulitzer Prize Board defending its 2018 award to The New York Times and The Washington Post for their reporting on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
In 2022, Trump sent letters to the Pulitzer Prize Board demanding that it rescind the 2018 National Reporting Prize awarded to The New York Times and The Washington Post. The former president argued that the reporting, which alleged connections between his campaign and Russian interference, had been discredited by subsequent investigations, including those led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller and congressional committees.
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In response, the Pulitzer Prize Board issued a statement on its website, asserting that independent reviews had confirmed the accuracy of the reporting and that the awards would stand. The statement read, in part:
“The separate reviews converged in their conclusions: that no passages or headlines, contentions or assertions in any of the winning submissions were discredited by facts that emerged subsequent to the conferral of the prizes. The 2018 Pulitzer Prizes in National Reporting stand.”
Trump filed a defamation and conspiracy lawsuit against 19 members of the Pulitzer Prize Board, alleging that the statement falsely implied that the Russia collusion narrative was credible, despite evidence to the contrary.
Of the 19 defendants, only one—Neil Brown, a Florida resident and former chair of the Poynter Institute—resided in Florida. The remaining 18 defendants, who live outside the state, moved to dismiss the case, arguing that Florida courts lacked personal jurisdiction over them.
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The circuit court denied the motion, and the Fourth District Court of Appeal upheld that decision. In its ruling, the appellate court found that Trump had sufficiently alleged that the defendants conspired to defame him and that their actions were directed at a Florida resident.
“Trump’s operative pleading sufficiently pled that the defendants engaged in a conspiracy to defame him,” wrote Judge Kuntz in the court’s opinion. “Further, the defendants issued the website public statement in response to the requests of a Florida resident—Trump.”
The court also noted that a draft of the statement was reviewed and edited by a Florida resident, and the final statement was published on a website accessible in Florida. These factors, the court ruled, established sufficient minimum contacts with the state to satisfy the requirements of Florida’s long-arm statute and the Due Process Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
The court relied on the “conspiracy theory of jurisdiction,” which holds that if one member of a conspiracy commits a tortious act within a state, all conspirators can be subject to that state’s jurisdiction. The court found that the defendants knowingly participated in a conspiracy with Neil Brown, the Florida resident, to issue the statement.
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“The non-resident defendants necessarily knew defendant Brown was committing overt acts in furtherance of the asserted conspiracy to defame the President in Florida,” the court wrote.
The court also addressed the merits of Trump’s defamation claims, noting that the Pulitzer Prize Board’s statement could be considered defamatory because it implied that the Russia collusion narrative was credible, despite evidence to the contrary.
“The statement constitutes defamation by implication because, as the complaint asserted, despite the fact that ‘the awarded organizations had reported the individual components of the Russia Collusion Hoax all wrong,’ the Pulitzer board members published a statement falsely implying that these facts were true,” the court wrote.
The court acknowledged that the case involves complex First Amendment issues, particularly the “actual malice” standard established by the U.S. Supreme Court in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan (1964). However, it declined to revisit that precedent, noting that only the Supreme Court has the authority to overturn its own rulings.
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Judge Artau, in a concurring opinion, criticized the Sullivan standard, arguing that it deviates from the original understanding of the First Amendment. He noted that at the time of the Constitution’s adoption, defamation was not protected speech, and public figures were not required to prove “actual malice” to recover damages.
“Unless and until the Supreme Court overturns New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, the actual malice standard must apply,” Artau wrote. “However, inferior courts can suggest, as I do here, that the Supreme Court revisit whether Sullivan should continue to be the law of the land.”
The ruling allows Trump’s lawsuit to proceed in Florida courts.
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